A Beautiful Mess (3 page)

She looked over the crowd and saw Kiera, Melanie, and Bridget enjoying the performance. The entire bar rocked out to their rendition of the classic tune. It felt great knowing that she could bring joy to complete strangers with a simple performance.

Growing up, her happiest memories revolved around music. She could barely remember her parents, but she did remember sitting with her mother at the piano in the great room, playing and singing together. Olivia’s mother tried to teach her to play piano when she could barely walk. Even at a young age, there was something about certain melodies that spoke to her.

After her parents died and she was sent to a boarding school, Olivia continued to learn everything she could about music, becoming proficient at a wide variety of instruments and excelling, particularly, at piano. Throughout middle school and high school, she was involved in musical theater groups and sang with various bands. There was something about performing that always calmed her. It almost felt as if she could be someone else for a short period of time.

They finished their rendition of
Honky Tonk Woman
and Olivia took a quick bow, thanking the audience for their enthusiasm. She climbed down the stage and the crowd started chanting her name, “Libby! Libby! Libby!” She looked over toward Kiera, who was jumping up and down, clapping and chanting along with the crowd. She was in complete shock at the people shouting her name.

“I think they want an encore, Miss Olivia,” Mo said into the microphone. Olivia walked back to her microphone and shouted into it, “Do you want to hear something else?” The crowd roared in approval. “Okay. Who am I to disappoint my adoring fans?” The liquor she had consumed throughout the evening had made her brave and maybe a little cocky.

She walked over to Mo to confer with him about what to perform next. When he told her what he wanted to do, she laughed, glancing over at the enthusiastic crowd, knowing immediately that they would thoroughly enjoy what he had planned.

“Here’s another one that we usually save until later in the night,” Mo said into the microphone. “But since we have Olivia up here, I figured it would be nice to actually have a female singing the high part instead of Marcus having to suffer through that.” The crowd laughed as he looked to Marcus, the band’s piano and guitar player. “Let’s rock it.” Dale, the drummer, counted off and the band went into Meatloaf’s
Paradise by the Dashboard Light
. The crowd danced and sang along, the men singing with Mo and the women singing with Olivia.

She ended up finishing the set with the band. Afterwards, the bartender sent a round of tequila shots to the stage for the reunited band and they obligingly took their shots together. “Here’s to
Groove Delay
finally being back together,” Willy, the bass player, shouted, raising his empty shot glass.

“It’s definitely good to be back singing with y’all.” Olivia looked around at the guys that she practically lived with during her college years. Besides Kiera, they were the only family she had left, although she had shut them out of her life the past several years. Why she had waited that long to see them again, she had no idea.

“So, will you sing with us once in a while?” Mo asked with a hopeful look on his face.
 

“You know I can’t tell you no,” Olivia replied coyly. She wrapped her arms around Mo. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear so no one could hear.

“You know I love you, baby girl.” Mo squeezed her tight and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. She pulled away, happy to have reconnected with him.

“Well, I should probably get back to Kiera and the girls before they leave without saying good-bye. Mo, let me know about rehearsals. I’ll see you all soon, I promise.” She gave Mo her cell number before waving to the guys, thankful to be able to perform with the band again.

Olivia walked through the large dance floor area as she searched for her friends. People kept stopping her, saying how much they loved the performance. A few people gave her a beer or shot and, while she knew it wasn’t the smartest idea to take drinks from people she didn’t know, Olivia felt invincible and on top of the world.

“You were amazing!” Melanie screamed as she wrapped her arms around Olivia once she had finally found her friends milling about the downstairs bar. “I had no idea you could sing like that!”

“Me neither,” Bridget said, handing Olivia yet another shot.

“Thanks girls.” The four friends raised their shot glasses and downed more tequila. At that point, they all had more than enough liquor in their systems. Olivia was not drunk, but she was definitely buzzed, or so she thought.

No. She was drunk.

“So, are you going to gig with them on a regular basis again?” Kiera looked at Olivia, raising her eyebrows.

“I think so. It felt good.”

“Good.”

The girls left the bar, it being long after last call. They stood on the relatively empty street and said their good-byes. Olivia waved, telling her friends that she had to go back to her office to grab her laptop and a few other things before she headed home for the night. Kiera gave her a worried look.

“I’ll text you the second I get home. I promise!” Olivia said, turning down the street as her friends piled in a cab.

Olivia walked the few blocks from the bar to her office in her own little world. She kept replaying the night in her mind. She finally started to feel happy for the first time in years. Maybe it was okay to start letting people back in again.

Olivia reached the building and recalled Jerry telling her that the front doors were locked at ten o’clock every night so she would need to use the night entrance on the side of the building. She walked past the front doors and turned the corner. As Olivia looked down into her purse to find the keycard that would grant her access to the night entrance, someone grabbed her around the waist and pinned her body, face first, against the brick building opposite her own office building, slamming her head against the hard wall.

“We meet again beautiful.” Fear rushed through Olivia’s body as her head began to ache and her vision became blurry.

“Simon, please. Leave me alone,” she pled, her heart racing.

“Come on, Livvy. You weren’t very nice to me before sweetheart,” he slurred his words. Even drunk, he was stronger than Olivia.

“You’re drunk. You’ll regret this tomorrow. Just let me go.” Blood began to trickle down her face. Olivia realized that Simon must have slammed her head pretty hard.

“You’re making it difficult for me to do my job,” he growled, pressing her even harder against the wall.

“What job is that, Simon?” Olivia decided the best thing to do was to just keep Simon talking. Distract him.

“I can’t tell you, bitch. Don’t you see?” he demanded forcefully, his breath hot against her neck. “But they know, Olivia. They know who you are. And they want their stuff. The proof.”

“What are you talking about Simon? I don’t know anything about that.” She was so confused at what Simon was saying to her. He didn’t make any sense.

“Don’t mock me, bitch!” Simon reached into his pocket, keeping Olivia pressed against the building with his body, and grabbed a knife, putting it up to her throat.

She looked down when she felt the cold metal against her skin. Tears streamed down her face. “Simon, please. I think you’re mistaken. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear.”

Simon thought about Olivia’s words. The people he worked for warned him that she may not remember, as it was so long ago. Then an idea came to him. It was a brilliant plan he was proud to have come up with, considering he was drunk. He knew it deviated from the plan he was told to adhere to, but he didn’t care.

“Well, maybe one last fuck will help you remember. And for once it will be on my terms and not yours,” he growled.

Olivia was confused and scared. “S-Simon. Please.” Tears started to flow more steadily from her eyes as he pushed Olivia’s skirt up. “Someone might see you,” she pled quietly, closing her eyes and hoping she would wake up and the entire evening turn out to be a bad dream.

Simon grabbed onto her panties and ripped them painfully from her body. She screamed from the shock of it.

“You know I like a screamer, but now’s not the time for that.” Simon pressed one hand over Olivia’s mouth, holding the knife against her throat with the other. Her entire body trembled under Simon’s weight.

Her mind started to race as she assessed her situation. Simon had her pinned against the wall with his body. He easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds. But he was drunk. All she needed was a few seconds to get away from him and run. She couldn’t move her back or her arms, and her legs were useless. She opened her eyes, but all she could see was the brick of the wall he had her pressed against. Her heart raced, fearful of what Simon was about to do to her.

 
She was in pain from her head being smashed into the brick wall. She felt dizzy and nauseous, probably from the combination of the head injury and the liquor she drank. The rage inside of her rose. She was not going to let Simon get away with this. She knew she needed to fight. Her eyes grew wide when she realized a way to get out from Simon’s grasp. Parting her lips, she sunk her teeth into his skin, biting down hard on his hand covering her mouth. When she tasted metal, she knew she had drawn blood.

“Ouch! Fucking bitch!” Simon screamed, releasing Olivia. She kneed him in the groin and he fell to the ground. She started to run away, but Simon was fast. He reached his hand out and grasped onto her ankle. Olivia screamed as he pulled her to the ground, her cries becoming desperate and loud.

With her free leg, Olivia kicked him repeatedly. Simon was forced to release her other leg when she landed a hard blow to his head. He moaned in pain, clutching his head as blood streamed down his face. Olivia quickly raised herself off the ground, desperate to get away from Simon, and fled onto State Street. She frantically ran down the cobblestone sidewalk, crying out for someone to help her. The silence around her was deafening as fear consumed her body, her hands shaking. The normally busy street was barren, the last of the bar patrons long gone for the evening.

The clouds in the sky created an ominous feel. All of the buildings were eerily dark. Street lights dimly illuminated each corner, casting shadows on the vacant street. As she tried to find someone to help her, Olivia heard a noise coming from the direction of the night entrance and she started running again, adrenaline coursing through her entire body. She wasn’t sure where to go but she knew she didn’t want Simon to ever touch her again.

I
N
the early morning hours of a Saturday in mid-August, Alexander Burnham found himself walking from his penthouse apartment on the Waterfront to his office building in the Financial District. He had trouble sleeping, as happened from time to time, so he decided to head into the office to see how a few of his security operations were going. He had been awoken earlier from a dream. A dream he hadn’t had in years. He saw those brown eyes that he hadn’t seen in ages. Those brown eyes he never thought he would see again. Those brown eyes he had let down. Why, after all these years, was she haunting his dreams again?

He left the leggy red-head in his bed and walked to his office building to clear his head.

As he walked down State Street, he heard a woman scream in the general direction of his office building. He immediately started to run, not caring about ruining his crisp gray suit. Closing in on the building, a tall woman with long wavy hair came running out of the street where the night entrance was located, frantically crying for help.

He slowed, hoping that he wouldn’t scare her even more than it appeared she already was. Then he saw someone chasing her. He doubled his efforts, his SEAL training kicking in. He noticed the knife her attacker carried and shuddered at what that man had done to the woman who fled so desperately. Within seconds, Alexander caught up to the man a block away from his office building. He quickly incapacitated him, knocking him to the ground.

When Olivia heard a commotion behind her, she glanced over her shoulder and saw a man in a gray suit attacking Simon, punching him repeatedly. She stopped abruptly, her heart racing and her breathing labored. She sank to the ground, shaking and relieved to have gotten away from Simon. Adrenaline still coursed through her veins, but she was exhausted and couldn’t take another step.

Olivia watched in curiosity as the man in the suit restrained Simon with a pair of zip ties. She wondered why someone would need to carry such an item with him.

Alexander walked over to the frightened woman as she sat on the ground trembling against a storefront. “Are you okay?” He stared into her big brown eyes.
This must be a trick
, he thought to himself. Surely, it couldn’t be. He had just seen those eyes in his dreams and now here he was, staring into what appeared to be the same eyes. He could recall only one girl ever having wide brown eyes like those, and she was long gone. He had given up hope years ago. “I think you might be in shock. I’m just going to place my jacket around your shoulders. You’re shaking.”

Olivia watched as he removed his suit jacket and took a few steps toward her, gingerly placing it around her back. She felt his hands linger on her shoulders for a brief second and a tingling sensation permeated her body. She looked into his beautiful green eyes, completely dumbstruck, a calm feeling overtaking her.

He stepped back again and Olivia was unable to take her eyes off his six-foot-five frame. She knew her reaction was completely inappropriate, considering Simon had just attacked her, but she couldn’t control it. She couldn’t remember ever being so attracted to someone.

He smiled, noticing her openly gawk at him, bringing attention to the boy-like quality of his face. Olivia wondered how old he could be as she took in his suit, his crisp white button down shirt doing a bad job at hiding the muscular torso underneath. She licked her lips, staring at his chest, soft little tendrils of dark hair escaping from the top of his shirt. Her eyes made their way lower, her breathing increasing as she ogled the dark gray pants that fell nicely from his hips, matching the suit jacket he had placed around her.